The positioning of EU judicial politics within the United Kingdom

This study proceeds from the observation that any analysis of the depth and contribution of judicial politics to EU integration must use national courts as its principal laboratory. In its empirical part, the analysis is based on an examination of all reported judgments in the UK between 1971 and 1998 in which EC law was addressed by national judges. In substantive terms, there is no evidence that the UK judiciary has been concerned to protect particular central spheres of British political and legal life from EU intrusion. Resistance has, however, been marked where EC law restricts domestic institutions' capacity to secure conformity in British society whether that conformity takes the form of securing those conditions that sustain and stabilise private relationships and private autonomy or whether it takes the form of protecting those institutions, such as criminal and immigration law which are taken to sustain a common collective consciousness.